It's no different than hiring police officers, building parks or providing services to the citizens, and he said it would help provide a greater level of comfort to Port Orange residents. New ambulances run anywhere between $200,000-$250,000, Fustin said. Should the city choose to buy an ambulance and implement it via the county's Peak Load Utilization System program - which has the potential to decrease response times within Port Orange if EVAC transport is unavailable - a used fully-equipped ambulance would cost the municipality about $150,000. “There just is not enough resources available for the county," Fustin said. "So I want to try to make sure that our citizens have the opportunity to be transported by the firefighters that work in the very city that they live in.” At this time though, Partington said he doesn't believe it's become a problem in the city specifically. The ambulance issue is still on the city's radar as a concern. “At this point, they have not come to us and said: ‘You really need to do this because your citizens are at risk,'" Partington said. He said the city manager and former fire chief have indicated to him that EMS is meeting the response times within the recommended time frames. That way, should response times in the city start looking inadequate, Partington said the city can take quick action to avoid the problem from growing.
#Volusia county evac plus
Though Ormond Beach may not be actively thinking about getting involved with the PLUS program, Ormond Beach Mayor Bill Partington said he's asked the city manager and former fire chief to watch EMS response times in the city "like a hawk." It's something that Fustin, who came from a fire-based EMS system in Springfield, Illinois, has been working toward.
The neighboring cities of Ponce Inlet, South Daytona, New Smyrna Beach and Edgewater have bought ambulances for themselves to alleviate the lack of EVAC transport services available, and the city of Port Orange has been thinking for the past two years about following in their footsteps. In all his years of fire department experience, Port Orange Fire Chief Ken Fustin said he's never seen an ambulance shortage quite like Volusia County's.
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